Redundancy is a situation where an employee either loses their job because there is less work available, or they are dismissed for a reason not related to them, depending on the rights that are being claimed.

In a redundancy situation which is because less work is available, employees can claim for a statutory redundancy payment. They also have rights for their dismissal to be handled in a particular way, and have re-deployment taken into account, for example. Otherwise, there may be an unfair dismissal.

Potentially redundant employees also have collective consultation rights, where 20 or more of them are affected, and a different definition of redundancy applies here. In collective consultation cases, a redundancy is any termination of employment which is not related to the individual concerned. This can therefore be for business reasons other than reductions in work, for instance changes in the way that work is done.